HUTCHINSON, Kan. — HutchCC is pleased with their enrollment numbers as they get ready to start next week.
"As of close of business yesterday, we were almost dead flat," said President Carter File. "We were down three quarters of one percent, year over year same day, we almost had an identical amount of credit hour enrollment. That's how we measure it. We also measure head count and we were actually up about 3% in head count."
Flat isn't great, but compared to other schools, it's a decent start.
"It's not where we want to be, but it's not unusual to be down," File said. "We're happy that we're flat. Our goal is always to try to increase enrollment, because we want to open up opportunities for students."
The mix of in person and online continues to shift as we come out of the pandemic, according to spokesperson Denny Stoecklein.
"Before the pandemic, our online enrollment was already very strong, north of 30%," Stoecklein said. "About a third of the credit hours we were teaching were online. That has obviously grown throughout the pandemic. Last I looked, we were pushing 40% online. Even those students who take some classes online, I would say it's a strong minority that take a full schedule online."
About 20% of HutchCC's enrollment are students who are still in high school through either concurrent or dual enrollment.